Forbes India - Tech Conversations

In this episode, which was recorded on May 12, N Krishnakumar, founding managing partner at Mela Ventures, a technology-focused VC firm in Bengaluru, talks about how the deep-tech landscape is evolving, with AI rapidly becoming mainstream. He gives us a quick update on some of the companies in Mela’s portfolio from its first fund, some contrarian lessons from those investments, and also talks about plans for the firm’s second fund. Krishnakumar expects the second fund to be in the ballpark of Rs. 1,000 crore.

In this episode, Jaicky Kumar and Deepak Mishra, co-founders of Voltanova Energy, give us an overview of their thermal battery energy storage system. Voltanova Energy is a startup incubated at the Indian Institute of Science’s Foundation for Science and Innovation Development. In collaboration with Professor Saptarshi Basu at the Institute as their technical advisor, Jaicky and Deepak have developed a carbon-free product that offers a lifespan of more than 40 years, and costs one-fifth that of traditional solutions, according to the Foundation's annual impact report for 2024. 

In this episode, Amit Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Yulu Bikes, talks about the opportunity for his company to scale on the back of the rise of quick commerce in India’s metros and large cities. Gupta also talks about the many lessons from having painstakingly built an asset-heavy business – an approach that’s not the first preference of VC investors – to the point where the company turned EBITDA positive, last year. And if a few things fall into place, including funding, Gupta expects to turn PAT positive as well by the end of 2026.

In this episode, Dushyant Mishra, Abhinay Vyas and Jot Singh, co-founders of Rapid Claims talk about their conviction in building AI products from India. They give us a quick update on their New York based venture, which has its entire product and engineering team in India, developing modern revenue cycle management software for the healthcare sector. They also speak about their own entrepreneurial experience and how it’s time that anyone who is passionate about building products from India should make that leap of faith.

In this episode, Brijraj Bhuptani, founder and CEO at Spry Therapeutics, talks about how he and his co-founder Riyaz Rehman found an opportunity in helping small and mid-sized physical therapy clinics in the US to become more efficient and innovative, with an AI-led revenue cycle management platform. Bhuptani also talks about pivots along the way; thinking about outcomes first that sharpened their go-to-market focus; and plans for going after bigger customers now, all while delivering the product development and engineering completely from India.

In this episode, recorded on January 2, Anand Anandkumar, V Balasubramanian and Santanu Datta, co-founders of Bugworks Research, give us a quick update on their quest for a novel antibiotic to tackle the problem of anti-microbial resistance. The trio, winners of the Forbes India Leadership Award 2025 under the Emerging Innovators category – alongside their Chief Scientist P Shahul Hameed – are also taking a ‘platform approach’ to develop a small molecule that they hope will fight some types of cancer.

In this episode, Alok Goyal, partner at Stellaris Venture Partners, and Khadim Batti, co-founder and CEO of Whatfix, a digital adoption platform provider, talk about their partnership from a VC who was skeptical about the venture to his fastest term sheet, to product market fit to $100 million in annual recurring revenue on the horizon. They talk about lessons from this experience and how the playbook has evolved for Indian SaaS companies selling enterprise software in the world’s biggest tech markets.

In this episode, Anand Daniel and Prayank Swaroop, partners at Accel, talk about the venture capital firm’s views on the next decade of Indian startups. Accel recently announced its eighth India-focused fund, at $650 million. In this conversation, Anand and Prayank also talk about how both startup founders and venture capitalists in India are evolving, and new generations come to the fore, bringing more original ideas to the market and more technical and business knowhow to their endeavours. 

In this episode, Vishal Katariya and Suraj Nair, AVPs at Ankur Capital, an early-stage VC firm in Mumbai, talk about the need for playbooks for different segments within the growing deep tech startup ecosystem in India. Vishal and Suraj, who’re both part of the investment team at Ankur, known for its investments in agritech, biotech, and health care startups, among others, hope for greater industry involvement in 2025 in supporting deep tech startups in India. They also talk about what they’d like to see in the budget next month.

In this episode, Aneesh Reddy, founder and CEO of Capillary Technologies, a well-known SaaS company in Bengaluru, talks about his experiments in leadership. As part of Forbes India’s recent issue on Founder’s Mode, this interview was recorded on November 22. In this conversation, Reddy talks about what he learnt from bringing in a professional chief executive, how execution holds the key to long-term success of a venture and what traits he looks for himself as an angel investor in a large number of startups.